 |
 |
 |
 |
PEOPLE
INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES TO AID THE SEARCH FOR RARE PROCESSES
Interview with Andrei Puiu, researcher at the INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratories, winner of an ERC Starting Grant with the OPOSSUM project
Exploring the secrets of the universe by searching for a very rare process: this is at the heart of the OPOSSUM project, proposed by Andrei Puiu, researcher at INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratories, which the European Research Council (ERC) has funded with a Starting Grant of € 1.5 million. OPOSSUM aims to improve the sensitivity of experiments dedicated to searching for a process known as "neutrinoless double beta decay " which, if observed, would confirm that neutrinos coincide with their antiparticles, as predicted by Ettore Majorana. The aim of the ERC Starting Grants, awarded annually and lasting five years, is to encourage the initial phase of researchers’ careers and their most promising projects. They are, in fact, allocated to those who have between two and seven years of post-doctoral experience and work in a public or private research organisation with its headquarters in one of the European Union Member States or associated countries. We asked Andrei Puiu to introduce us to the project he conceived.
Can you explain the OPOSSUM project to us and what its goals are?
The main goal of the OPOSSUM project is to improve the sensitivity of experiments that search for an extremely rare process, the so-called "neutrinoless double beta decay". In this decay, an atomic nucleus releases two electrons without emitting neutrinos, in contrast to what happens in standard double beta decay.NEWS
RESEARCH
CERN: THE NA62 EXPERIMENT OBSERVES AN EXTREMELY RARE PROCESS
The NA62 experiment at CERN, in which groups from Italy's National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) play a major role, has observed for the first time an extremely rare decay process that theoretical models predict with great precision. This new measurement, presented in a seminar at CERN on September 24, could open an important path toward the discovery of new physics beyond the Standard Model of elementary particles.
RESEARCH
CMS PRESENTS THE MOST PRECISE MEASUREMENT OF W BOSON MASS AT LHC
It is the most precise measurement ever obtained at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) accelerator of the mass of the W boson, and determines its value to be 80360.2 MeV with an uncertainty of 9.9 MeV. The measurement was made by the CMS experiment by analysing data produced in proton-proton collisions of the second LHC data-acquisition period (run2).
RESEARCH
THE SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL LEGACY OF THE BOREXINO EXPERIMENT
From the reason why stars and the Sun shine to pioneering technologies: in 32 years at INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratories, the Borexino experiment has achieved fundamental scientific as well as technological achievements that represent an important legacy for experiments studying rare events or very low energy neutrinos.
FOCUS
INFN.OPEN, TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER IS AT THE HEART OF INNOVATION
How do we promote that fruitful exchange between research and industry that brings into our daily routine technologies and innovations that can improve the quality of our lives? How can we foster the sharing of new knowledge between these two realities, which often operate in contexts so distant from each other? How can we make the communication process between the scientific and productive worlds more efficient? These are some of the questions at the centre of the day-long workshop “INFN.Open: technology transfer, from research to innovation”, held today, 18 September, at Palazzo Merulana in Rome. Basic research needs advanced technologies that often require solutions beyond the state of the art and that are therefore not yet part of industrial know-how. The research world thus becomes a unique source of innovative technology in many fields, from superconductivity to electronics, precision mechanics, and high-performance networks ...
FROM THE BIG SCIENCE BUSINESS FORUM IN TRIESTE TO THE SCIENCE FESTIVAL IN GENOA, A MONTH OF PUBLIC EVENTS